THE ELIZABETHAN FAIRIES

158 CHANGELING AND WITCH
It is interesting to observe that, in the exchange of offspring,
it was the fairy child who suffered most from the
transaction. He became superlatively ugly, deformed
and stupid in his human estate, and was loathed and resented
by his mortal mother. The human baby, on the
other hand, suffered neither the disgrace - of ill looks nor
of idiocy. Instead, he remained beautiful and charming,
fit to be chosen as the consort of a queen, as in The Faerie
Q~eene,~* and the most coveted possession of the fairy
court in A Midsummer Night's Dream.35
Far from being shunned and abhorred, the mortal
changeling was the object of the most affectionate care
and the most untiring attention. In The Sad Shepherd
of Ben Jonson, the fairies are pictured as carrying their
changelings in their arms even when they danced.36 The
" stolen children " of the fairies of The Faithful Shepherdess
are dipped oftentimes into a consecrated well
. . . . . so to make them free
From dying flesh, and dull mortality; 37
while the " lovely boy " who was a changeling in A Mid-
Perch'd on the cradle's top he stands,
And thus her folly reprimands:
Whence sprung the vain conceited lie,
That we the world with fools supply?
What! give our sprightly race away,
For the dull helpless sons of clay!
Besides, by partial fondness shown,
Like you we dote upon our own.
Where yet was ever found a mother,
Who'd give her booby for another?
And should we change with human breed,
Well might we pass for fools indeed."
34 Spenser, Book 111, Canto 111, Stanza XXVI.
11, I.
Gifford ed., 1846, 11, 2.
37 Fletcher, I, 2.